Quote

Too few people recognize that the high technology so celebrated today is essentially a mathematical technology.

Edsger Dijkstra

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edsger Dijkstra
Age: 72 †
Born: 1930
Born: May 11
Died: 2002
Died: August 5
Computer Scientist
Engineer
Mathematician
Physicist
Scientist
University Teacher
R'dam
Edsger Dijkstra
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra
Dijkstra
EWD
E.W. Dijkstra
Mathematics
Technology
High
Today
People
Celebrated
Essentially
Mathematical
Recognize

More quotes by Edsger Dijkstra

Image
We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people sometimes they follow it!
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
I mentioned the non-competitive spirit explicitly, because these days, excellence is a fashionable concept. But excellence is a competitive notion, and that is not what we are heading for: we are heading for perfection.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
A convincing demonstration of correctness being impossible as long as the mechanism is regarded as a black box, our only hope lies in not regarding the mechanism as a black box.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
The computing scientist's main challenge is not to get confused by the complexities of his own making.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes, biology is about microscopes or chemistry is about beakers and test tubes. Science is not about tools. It is about how we use them, and what we find out when we do.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
I mean, if 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself Dijkstra would not have liked this, well, that would be enough immortality for me.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
In their capacity as a tool, computers will be but a ripple on the surface of our culture. In their capacity as intellectual challenge, they are without precedent in the cultural history of mankind.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
There is very little point in trying to urge the world to mend its ways as long as that world is still convinced that its ways are perfectly adequate.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
The ability of discerning high quality unavoidably implies the ability of identifying shortcomings.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
There should be no such thing as boring mathematics.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
The effort of using machines to mimic the human mind has always struck me as rather silly. I would rather use them to mimic something better.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Beauty is our business.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
PL/1, the fatal disease, belongs more to the problem set than to the solution set.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
How do we convince people that in programming simplicity and clarity - in short: what mathematicians call elegance - are not a dispensable luxury, but a crucial matter that decides between success and failure?
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
The prisoner falls in love with his chains.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
FORTRAN, the infantile disorder, by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is now too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Object-oriented programming is an exceptionally bad idea which could only have originated in California.
Edsger Dijkstra
Image
Production speed is severely slowed down if one works with half-time people who have other obligations as well. This is at least a factor of four probably it is worse.
Edsger Dijkstra